EBay to Settle U.S. Suit Over No-Recruiting Pact

May 1 (Bloomberg) -- EBay Inc. settled a U.S. lawsuit
accusing it of violating antitrust laws by agreeing not to hire
Intuit Inc. employees, bringing an end to a Justice Department
crackdown on Silicon Valley hiring practices.

EBay, the world’s largest online marketplace, agreed to
refrain from entering into unlawful accords with other companies
to not hire each other’s workers, the Justice Department said
today. EBay also settled with California and agreed to pay $3.75
million to the state.

The settlement follows last week’s agreement by Apple Inc.,
Google Inc., Intel Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc. to settle an
employee lawsuit over claims they conspired to suppress salaries
by not recruiting one another’s workers. Those Silicon Valley-based companies agreed to pay $324 million, a person familiar
with the matter said.

Bill Baer, the head of the Justice Department’s antitrust
division, said his office doesn’t have any other active
investigations into recruitment practices by companies.

EBay’s agreement with Intuit limited competition between
the two companies and caused employees to lose opportunities for
better jobs, the Justice Department said.

“The behavior here was blatant and egregious,” Baer said
in a conference call with reporters. “Part of what we’ve done
here is make it abundantly clear to high-tech companies that the
antitrust laws apply to them. You can’t innovate your way around
the antitrust laws.”

Apple, Google

The case stems from a series of Justice Department
investigations into employee-recruitment practices at high-tech
companies. In 2010, the U.S. settled claims against Adobe,
Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Walt Disney Co.’s Pixar unit and
Lucasfilm Ltd.

EBay didn’t admit to violating the law as part of the
settlement, according to a federal court filing in San Jose,
California.

“EBay continues to believe that the policy that prompted
this lawsuit was acceptable and legal,” the San Jose-based
company said in a statement. “EBay competes aggressively to
attract and retain the best talent, while conforming to the
hiring-practices standards established by the Department of
Justice in prior hiring-related cases.”

The U.S. complaint against EBay, filed in 2012, accused
senior executives at EBay and Intuit of striking “evolving
handshake” accords from 2006 to 2009 to restrict recruiting and
hiring each others’ workers. The practice allegedly distorted
competition for specialized computer engineers and scientists.

Meg Whitman

EBay and Intuit executives involved included EBay’s former
Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman, now CEO of Hewlett-Packard
Co., and Intuit co-founder Scott Cook, according to the Justice
Department.

Intuit, the largest seller of personal-finance software,
wasn’t a defendant in the federal case against EBay. Intuit
settled California’s claims over no-hire agreements last June.

The Justice Department case is U.S. v. EBay, 12-05869, U.S.
District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose). The
state case is California v. EBay, 12-05874, U.S. District Court,
Northern District of California (San Jose).

To contact the reporters on this story:
David McLaughlin in Washington at
dmclaughlin9@bloomberg.net;
Joel Rosenblatt in federal court in San Jose, California, at